WHO tribute

We cannot afford to lower guard and must continue to follow the suggested SOPs so as to prevent a second wave

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has once again lauded Pakistan’s Covid-19 containment strategy. Writing an opinion piece in The Independent, the renowned British newspaper, the WHO director general presented Pakistan as an example worth emulating in the context of suppressing the coronavirus infection that is rampaging on in many parts of the world having already infected 33,841,729 people worldwide and claimed 1,012,657 lives since its outbreak in China’s Wuhan city late last year. Despite bordering China though, Pakistan has managed to contain the number of Covid deaths to 6,474 as of yesterday with 311,516 being the total number of cases of the infection. A comparison with the neighbouring India — which has 6,223,519 cases and 97,529 deaths — as well as with the world’s most advanced country, the US — which has 7,406,146 cases and 210,785 deaths — tells us why the WHO chief could not help praise Pakistan.

“Pakistan deployed the infrastructure built up over many years for polio to combat COVID-19. Community health workers who have been trained to go door-to-door vaccinating children against polio have been redeployed and utilised for surveillance, contact tracing and care,” writes Ghebreyesus as he highlights the reasons behind Pakistan’s success against the deadly microbe. The world health body chief insists that “this has suppressed the virus so that, as the country stabilises, the economy is also now picking up once again. Reinforcing the lesson that the choice is not between controlling the virus or saving the economy; the two go hand-in-hand.” Earlier in May, Tedros had regarded Pakistan as one of the countries from which the international community should learn how to deal with the reigning pandemic.

And that’s indeed a tribute to the Government of Prime Minister Imran Khan whose smart lockdown strategy not only led to fewer Covid numbers in the country but also saved the national economy from going deep into depression. Despite coming under pressure from his political rivals as well as the medical fraternity and the media to impose a complete lockdown across the country in the middle of March Covid cases had been reported from all four provinces as well as from Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, Prime Minister Imran was pretty firm that an all-closed would serve a lethal blow to the economy — something that “could result in people dying from hunger” rather than the virus itself whose fatality rate is as low as 3 per cent.

While all the provinces imposed a lockdown in the last week of March, the Prime Minister, on April 14, eased restrictions on several low-risk industries, including construction, agriculture, e-commerce, paper and packaging, and others to allow the business activities to resume in a bid to stem a deepening economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus crisis. The restrictions were eased further on May 3 while a smart lockdown strategy was imposed about a month later whereby only virus hotspots were to be subjected to closures so as to help the economy revive. And of late, educational institutions across the country have also been reopened. The federal government, meanwhile, also distributed nearly Rs196 billion among those worst hit by the pandemic under its Ehsaas cash programme.

And now we are among a very few countries in the world that have gone back to a near-normal work routine, thanks also to our healthcare professionals who risked their lives to save ours. However, we must stay warned that the coronavirus is still very much there. Hence, we cannot afford to lower the guard and must continue to follow the suggested SOPs so as to prevent a second wave of the infection from rearing its ugly head.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2020.

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